I often find it difficult to explain my atheism to religious friends/relatives without it sounding like I'm preaching or trying to "break their faith" or whatever. Sometimes I worry that I'm too afraid I'll sound like Richard Dawkins (who irritates the hell out of me), and too compromising.
I can barely make it through a religious service, and only by suppressing the powerful urge to run.
I'm usually good at sitting through it all, but there are some aspects of religious services that never fail to turn me off. A few years ago my (atheist/agnostic) parents decided my brother and I should get a feel for what Christmas Eve services are like, since they both had fond memories of the music and everything from when they were kids (my mom was raised Baptist, and my dad Catholic). So we went to midnight mass at one of the bigger Catholic churches downtown that supposedly had a great choir. Well, at one point the priest started saying how everyone should talk to their MPs about banning abortion and gay marriage. Merry Christmas, indeed. Instead of putting money in the collection plate later, my brother and I gave our change to a homeless guy outside.
I can't even talk about the priest from my Grandma's funeral.
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I often find it difficult to explain my atheism to religious friends/relatives without it sounding like I'm preaching or trying to "break their faith" or whatever. Sometimes I worry that I'm too afraid I'll sound like Richard Dawkins (who irritates the hell out of me), and too compromising.
I can barely make it through a religious service, and only by suppressing the powerful urge to run.
I'm usually good at sitting through it all, but there are some aspects of religious services that never fail to turn me off. A few years ago my (atheist/agnostic) parents decided my brother and I should get a feel for what Christmas Eve services are like, since they both had fond memories of the music and everything from when they were kids (my mom was raised Baptist, and my dad Catholic). So we went to midnight mass at one of the bigger Catholic churches downtown that supposedly had a great choir. Well, at one point the priest started saying how everyone should talk to their MPs about banning abortion and gay marriage. Merry Christmas, indeed. Instead of putting money in the collection plate later, my brother and I gave our change to a homeless guy outside.
I can't even talk about the priest from my Grandma's funeral.